Last night at our Old school Kitchen Kids cooking class we made Lasagna, garlic bread and pea, cabbage and fetta salad. The kids split the work up and all helped make it together this week. Making pasta is always fun with kids and who doesn’t love a good lasagne on a cold winters night? This salad is delicious and perfect when lettuce just doesn’t cut it in winter. We also had the added pressure of a child Studies baby that was on an overnighter with on of our students but little Jimmy was a perfect baby and slept until about 6.30, he did end up with a bit of food on him but that is real life!

Lasagne recipe from The Real food for Kids cookbook
salad is from Seafood Everyday, it is with grilled occy in the book
bread recipes in all my books.

We had our second stall at Salamanca on Saturday, I think the stalls look is improving? We made some signs with quotes from what people have said about my books, trying to get the message across that are great books-with recipes that work-the recipes are easy-it is more economical to cook-it is healthier to cook, in the ENTIRE 2 seconds I have while people are walking past the stall. You know a super easy task really, seeing that the evil processed food corporations have spent 50 years convincing people cooking is hard, time consuming and expensive, so that we buy there packets of crap. I go on about cost and health of cooking in Packed cookbook, this week I spent $117 at Aone Fruit market that included 4 dozen free range eggs. Pumpkin is $1.20 a kilo, a beautiful bunch of beetroot for $3 a entire bench full of lovely veggie and fruit and eggs. I’ll make some delicious meals out of that lot for the entire week with some fish, meat and chicken. Soup and an egg is an easy meal for busy kids through the week and we are using the thermos everyday for school lunches. It is an absolute lie that eating well is more expensive, we spent more on burgers for four of us for ONE meal on Saturday night. They were nice burgers but even the dodgy ones are still expensive in my opinion.

The new stall signs looked cute printed and framed and will look good if I go ahead and purchase the commercial tent for the stall, if we continue on in a more permanent and regular arrangement at this Saturday market. I offer a 2 book special for people at the market and I have now loaded that online so that tourists can order when they get home. If you order and want to pick up from Glenorchy just use the code localspickup so you don’t get charged the $10 post.

This week at our Old School kitchen Kids cooking class we made a delicious one tray Tassal salmon pilaf, the recipe is in ‘Celebrate’ cookbook, we tweaked it with extra veggies for a weeknight family meal. It really was delicious. I always recommend Salmon to anyone that may be a bit nervous cooking seafood. Salmon is a good choice it can be served medium all the way through to well done without hurting it too much. So, you can’t really muck it up. I did notice when I was in the Salmon Shop Salamanca, that they had a special on for frozen pieces for $15.50 a kilo (I think). The frozen pieces would be fine in this baked Pilaf. An economical seafood family meal if you are watching your budget. It made it into the kids thermoses today too. It is thermos season, my kids have had many people comment on their fancy lunches but heating leftovers and shoving it into a thermos is about as easy as it gets for a packed lunch!

Some weeks at the kids classes we get in and cook a big dish with jobs allocated and other weeks the kids cook their own family meal, depending on what we are cooking and the time that we have. Last night they all cooked their own and did an brilliant job practising their knife skills, frying and baking.

The week before (I have not had a chance to post about as last week was very busy setting up for our first Salamanca Market stall) we made a Slow Cooked lamb Cannelloni recipe from Packed cookbook. For this class I had the lamb cooked and we focused on making or own pasta as a group. Home made pasta is the best for a nice pasta dish like this and this is an example of how with a bit of effort we can make something delicious from economical foods, in this case a few BBQ chops.

For those interested our first Salamanca Market stall went well. While we didn’t break any book selling records we did sell a few and I got to chat to lots of people and hear some interesting feedback and chat about classes and workshops. Including a lovely lady who stopped to tell me how much she loves Packed. But sadly, I didn’t sell one copy of Packed Cookbook at the market, I have joked with some friends before that it is my least selling cookbook ever, yet from the people that have the book, it would be the most raved about for practically and simple delicious recipes and the hints and tips how to organise it all. And we would think a lot of families would need the book now with the rising cost of living. So, how do I get that message across to someone in 2 seconds as they stroll past my stall?? Especially when the packet food industry has spent the last 50 years convincing us that cooking is too hard, time consuming and expensive and their friends in the diet industry has convinced us food that is good for us doesn’t taste good .

I do need to work on my display, like my market mentor Kylie’s beautiful Art Of Words Studio stall if the market becomes a permanent event for us, mine looked a bit shoddy really when I was looking through the pics, but we’ve got to start some where, right?!

This is what we are cooking for meals and thermos lunches this week. With my kids busy everyday afters school and all home at different times every evening, some weeks I just cook a few dishes to heat when they need them. The bonus of a curry or soup is it improves in flavour the longer it sits anyway so there is no harm done pre cooking it.

Pilaf Salmon
Lamb Kashmir Curry (recipe Tasmania pantry 2)
Mango Chicken Curry (Packed cookbook)
Pumpkin and Cauliflower Dahl (Tasmania Pantry)
Chicken Brown Rice Soup (Packed)
Banana Bread (The Real food for Kids cookbook) for a sweet treat for the kids lunch boxes

Snacks: Veg sticks and fresh fruit, popcorn  for snacks I find we don’t need snacks when eating decent  meals, but I might make a hummus  for the veggies and for an occy dish I want to try this week for Seafood Everyday 2

Breakfasts: overnight oats,  eggs and bacon, omelette with salmon (Seafood Everyday), toast

If you need copies of my books buy them from my online store or at Salamanca Market we will be there for the next 2 weeks at least.